The county council could be raking in almost £3m in parking fines every year, mostly from drivers in Cambridge, from just 24 traffic wardens.

The cost of a parking ticket is either £50 or £70 – depending on the reason it has been issued.

And because of growth in the city the amount taken in fines has increased but the council has no plans to increase the number of traffic wardens.

A Cambridgeshire County Council spokesman said: “Whilst the vast majority of motorists happily abide by the rules and accept them unfortunately there remains a small number of people who for whatever reason choose to ignore them.

“The number of parking tickets over the last few years have been around the 40,000 mark. Although there has been a slight increase this year on the previous year there has been major growth in the city including additional traffic, new roads and developments to enforce.

“However, despite this significant growth the parking enforcement is working as tickets have only slightly increased.

“Civil parking enforcement is just one strategy used which continues to make our streets safer and less congested and at the same time costs responsible drivers and the taxpayer nothing.

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The council said it issued about 42,000 parking fines per year and about 36,000 parking permits are issued per year.

The data comes after Cambridge City Council moved to alleviate the sky-high cost of parking, blamed for forcing some drivers to park illegally.

The cost of parking in city council-owned car parks could be cut to prevent traffic congestion over weekends.

The cuts would apply for Mondays and Tuesdays, but the cost of parking on other weekdays, evenings and overnight would be frozen and changes to charges would take effect on April 1 but are subject to approval in February.

Sunday charges are set to increase but cutting parking charges on Mondays and Tuesdays, to similar levels to those of 2012, is designed to make low peak times help reduce the demand at weekends.

Charges for Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays will remain at 2015 levels.